


You've been locked in here forever

by palamig



Series: in the wee small hours [3]
Category: Fruits Basket
Genre: Accidental Yukikyo I guess, F/M, I'm here with YET ANOTHER kyo fic fuck, Kyo is trying his best, Mild Cursing, Socially Awkward Kyo, Was it really an accident though, a little angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 10:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palamig/pseuds/palamig
Summary: She leaves her window open.





	You've been locked in here forever

She leaves her window open. 

He noticed it on the first week he spent living with Shigure. He’d been lying on the rooftop, thinking about whatever deep thing he was thinking about that night, when he heard a creak coming from the direction of her room. Out of _pure curiosity_ , he sat up, leaned forward to the source of the unmistakable noise that came from the room that had always been empty until the day this girl moved in.

It was astounding to think there are people who’d actually spend their first night living at a _complete stranger’s_ house with their windows wide open like some idiot. He’d met a lot of ordinary idiots in the past but this girl was definitely _some_ idiot.

As much as it riled him up to have to unconsciously dart his eyes to her open window from time to time, he couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it.

He’d already broke down Shigure’s roof once, and although he couldn’t give a flying damn about how much the broken roof cost the actual residents, the look of unmistakable fright in the face of this...this _weird_ girl was enough to banish him into his own self-inflicted punishment of avoiding her like the plague for the next few days (in addition to keeping him up for roughly three straight nights even after he fixed the damned roof for her).

From that point on, he already knew this girl was going to bring trouble.  

* * *

Kyo spends most of his evenings lying on the roof. Most days it was freezing cold, and the roof tiles were sharp and hard on his back. But it was quiet up here. He could see the moon and the twinkling stars that trailed around it. This was _his_ spot. He was always alone up here, his walls and defenses left on the ground where the rest of this chaotic world was. The way he had always liked to be.

But it changed when she moved in. It got a lot noisier. His nightly introspection would be disturbed by the surprising noise coming from her room which sounds suspiciously like soft, high pitched giggling.

They talk and laugh about mundane things, like some TV show they watched at dinner, people at school, something dumb Kyo did today. It was annoying to hear her laugh about literally everything as if everything, even the not-so-funny parts of life, was absolutely hilarious to her. Even more annoying was to realize that the other melodic laugh accompanying hers was that ugly, good-for-nothing rat’s. 

He doesn’t know what makes his skin curl. The fact that she’d left her window wide open again to welcome the friendly neighborhood insects inside the house, or the fact that _fucking Yuki_ actually knows how to laugh.

Yuki never smiled, never talked, never acted like he was being genuine. He was stone cold like his name. There was nothing warm or disgustingly cuddly about Yuki. It was disgusting. It felt wrong. She’d caused a serious imbalance in this ancient home that absolutely _needs_ to be corrected.

Kyo became absolutely compelled to get up from his lying position on the roof, and swing into her room just to tell them both to shut up.     

And that’s exactly what he did.

“Hello, Kyo-kun.” She greets when he arrives.

They were sitting cross-legged on the floor with books and notebooks spread open before them, but it didn’t look like they were doing homework. She had a pillow on her lap, her thin hair tied to two tiny buns on the top of her head. There were sliced up mangoes and a pitcher of lemonade on her feet.

Behind her, Yuki tenses up, his lips curling back into a frown that looks as if it’s never tasted a smile in the past. Kyo’s presence was static electricity in the air around Yuki and only Tohru was immune to it. There was something careful and cautious in Yuki’s cloudy grey eyes and for a split second, Kyo’s shoulder relaxes. This was coldness what he was used to. _This_ was right _._

“Would you like to join us?” Tohru is shining in all her blissful, polite, and maybe a little deliberate, ignorance.

Sometimes Kyo doesn’t know if she does this on purpose or if she really was just this stupid, but seeing the way Yuki slowly returns to writing things on his notebook, choosing to ignore the heavy awkwardness Kyo is definitely choking on, maybe it didn’t matter.

Kyo feels his heart clench. It takes a while for him to process what was happening. He had received an invitation. _Her_ invitation. To sit with them. To talk. To chat. To laugh about dumb fucking shit. Like it was okay. Like it was normal.

He turns to Yuki, every panicking cell in his brain hoping that this dumb rat can do something to correct how absolutely unmistakably _wrong_ this whole situation feels. But Yuki’s fixed on his notebook, choosing to ignore him. Choosing to let this girl stomp around the house, doing whatever the hell she wanted, even if it included inviting _him_ to come sit with her and _fucking Yuki_ to have a chitchat over fucking sliced mangoes and lemonade.

It felt fake. Absolutely, disgustingly _fake_. It wasn’t real. They’re trying to make him look stupid. It was almost maddeningly stupefying how artificial this whole thing felt. And then it’s happening again. The twist in his gut, his nervous sweating, the sudden dizzying, lightheaded feeling in his head, the nausea that’s almost enough to make him hurl his dinner. His vision blurs, and his mind starts clouding.

It happens before he could stop himself. Without thinking he’s yelling a bunch of stuff at her, watching her big brown eyes widen with shock— _hurt_ , slashing through this bubble of warm ignorance she’s created like sharp knives _._ His mind was telling him that this is good. This is how things are _supposed to be._

When he was done, he shuts up. The room is dead silent. All he could hear were the chirping cicadas and the rustling of trees in the empty, dark forest beyond them. He looks the wreckage he caused and catches Yuki’s grey, raincloud eyes and thinks he sees something like pity _._ He doesn’t dare look at Tohru. He spins around and walks away.

If this was the right thing to do, then why was his heart burning like it was on fire?

* * *

He’s slouched, head buried in his knees, at some dark corner in the hallway outside her room. He doesn’t know where this feeling is coming from. Or why out of all people in the world, these feelings come from _her._

The door creaks open. He hears light, careful footsteps that stop a good distance in front of him. He should feel angry, disgusted. But it got tiring to compel himself to get up and pick a fight. He wasn’t in the mood. He wasn’t in _any mood._ He stayed like this, curled in a ball, like a dejected loser.

“I don’t care about your issues,” Yuki says in a low, threatening voice, “But don’t drag her into it.”

The rat walks away. Kyo doesn’t shout after him, doesn’t chase after him. Because both of them knew that there are no victors in this kind of battle.

* * *

It takes an entire day of brooding to muster up the courage to talk to Tohru again. Breakfast was quiet, the walk to school felt incredibly awkward, and for the rest of the day, he swears Yuki’s condescending glares felt a hundred times more genuine. Most importantly, every time he looked at her, his heart started burning.

“You keep forgetting to lock your stupid window,” He says as he lands on the floor gracefully, like he didn’t spend a total of an hour and thirty minutes mulling in the roof picking his choice of first words and then practicing how he’ll say them to Tohru. 

It startles her, definitely. She nearly drops the clothes she’s folding on her bed, and he’s _pretty sure_ that’s his jacket in her hands. She turns to him, with a bright smile that has either forgiven him of his sins or has chosen to forget them.

“Hello, Kyo-kun.” She greets.

He’s standing awkwardly by the window, shifting his leg back and forth, confused where to go. He swung by here without thinking. He just noticed she turned the lights on, and opened her window like the goddamn airhead that she is and then it was like his body moved on his own. He didn’t think through the conversation he’s going to have with her. He didn’t think he'd actually get _this_ far.

She’s watching him with curious eyes, “Do you want to sit?”

Kyo takes a deep breath, and before he can say anything else, Tohru stands up abruptly. Her hip hits a pile of clothes she stacked on her bed and now it’s tipped to the side like an avalanche. 

“Oh!” She shouts looking around, like she’d gotten him absolutely figured out, except that she’s always, depressingly wrong, “I’m _so_ sorry! My room is a mess! Let me just fix up for a second.”

“ _Stop_.”

Tohru freezes. Turns to him curiously.

Kyo is bad at words. Bad at feelings. Bad at people. Most importantly, he was bad at Tohru. Right now he was struggling like an awkward newborn baby giraffe trying to walk. He was not used to people being...being nice to him that Tohru’s kindness almost felt fake. But Kyo wasn’t going to make the same mistake. He’s gotten this fucking far, and he’s not going to ruin it.

“Y-you don’t have to- _tch_.” Deep breath,“What I’m try’na say is- just stay where you are. I’ll...I’ll sit anywhere.”

And he does sit anywhere. He sits at the farthest corner where he was the furthest from her. It was for her own good.

His head feels heavy, so he keeps it hung low. For some reason it’s so hard to look at this girl. He feels like if he does, he’s going to implode from all the pent up, unexplainable feelings she’s caused. “Sorry...about yesterday. I wasn’t in a good mood and-”

He shook his head. He was making it sound like it was her fault. Like _she_ had to adjust herself to match what he was feeling that day. He can’t ask that much from her. He ruffles his hair and curses at himself. Goddamn it-

“Do you want to help me fold the laundry?” She says suddenly.

For some reason, he can hear her voice clearly in his head. Like she was saying, _I’ve forgiven you the exact moment you left._ But he wasn’t sure. It felt too good to be true.

He nods once. And like a guilty six-year-old trying to make up for something bad he did, he silently, carefully crawls toward her. There was a pile of what he guesses were Shigure’s dress shirts that still smelled like booze and nicotine even after they’ve been washed.  They work wordlessly, with him working fast and gathering all of his power to make sure _he’s_ the one doing most of the work, and her working slowly periodically glancing at him with her large brown eyes like she couldn’t believe he was here.  

When they were done, he stood up, and leaned down to carry the pile of Shigure’s folded laundry she is definitely too tired to carry.

“Kyo-kun-”

“I’ll take this to that dog.” He cuts her off, eyes darting from her to his feet in an awkward tempo, still feeling way too awkward to look at her properly, “Just...just stay there and rest or whatever...”

Tohru grins a grin that shows all of her teeth. Her face blooms with a pure, unadulterated happiness and for some reason, it reminds him of the only one other important person in his life who had patiently withstood all of his rough edges, who had shown him what true, genuine love and kindness felt like. 

“Thank you, Kyo-kun!” She smiles, and he chooses to accept it.

* * *

He decides that she can do whatever the hell she wants. She can leave the window open all night if she wanted. He’ll stay at the roof, thinking to himself, and at the same time making sure no illicit people climb up the second story of this house and sneak in through her room. There will be hell to pay if that happens.

He finds it a little reassuring. The idea that he can spend his quiet evenings alone at the rooftop, knowing that when he sits up, and turns his head at the correct direction, there she’ll be. A bright lighted room with windows open where he can swing by whenever he wanted. To do homework. To fold laundry. To talk and laugh about stupid shit.

He’s learned to tell the difference of being alone and being completely alone. He’s also learned that it was actually possible to be neither.

At exactly 11:30 in the evening, he gets up. And out of habit, he swings by her room. She’s already fast asleep by then, snoring softly under baby pink sheets. He turns her night light off, and pulls the blanket that missed her open feet.  There are books and notebooks scattered on her floor that she was too tired to clean, and he fixes those up for her too.

He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. No matter who the fuck he was, it was creepy as hell to sneak into a girl’s room at the middle of the night. If anyone else in this household found out, he’s doomed. He’ll never hear the end of it.

But it’s okay, his heart tells him. Tohru understands. Tohru doesn’t mind.

Before he left, he closes her window and locks it.

* * *

One day he wakes up to a shriek coming from her room. In a matter of seconds, he’s on his feet, wide awake and ready to charge into battle.

Until someone else starts talking.

“Tohru-kun, be mindful of your surroundings when you change clothes.”

Kyo can feel heart start palpitating like crazy.

“Although I _personally_ _don’t really mind at all_ -” He forms a single resolve. He was going to have to kill this dog. “- _people currently occupying unconventional parts of this house_ might take advantage of this situation.”

At this point, Kyo feels every valve in his heart stop. Tohru is mumbling something too soft for him to hear and Shigure literally does not stop talking. Killing was definitely not enough.

“Now I understand why Kyo-kun has been in such a good mood lately. _Oh_ , the flavor of youth is _spicy_ indeed!”

This was it. Before he can stop himself, he jumps off the roof and swings into her open window like he’d done this a million times in the past. Which is not something he’ll proudly admit to. He’s fucking _ready_ to bite this dog’s head off and to yell at him to leave her the fuck alone.

When he’s finally landed, he sees Shigure leaning against the doorframe with a tray of orange juice and cut up apples and a wide, shit-eating grin on his face. Like this was a fucking mouse trap and the stupid, good for nothing cat fell for it.

He turns to Tohru. The first thing he felt was a huge wave of relief that she was fucking _okay_ , even if the intruder was an average simpleton like Shigure. But then he realizes the tricky situation he was in.

Tohru was slouching slightly clutching a white cotton shirt against her chest. Yup, that was definitely her. And her very bare back. And a thin, baby pink _thing_ that looks like-

The last thing he hears was her loud shriek.

* * *

It felt like deja vu all over again. But this time he was crouched by the foot of the staircase, like the dejected loser he’s consistently proving to everyone that he is, waiting for her to finish up changing. Literally everything in his body was burning, and he was sweating _so much_ he needed to let this the fuck out.

When he hears the arrival of soft footsteps, he shoots up immediately.

“I-it’s not true.” He blurts, clenching his already very wet fists tightly. His heart was racing under his chest it almost felt like he was going through cardiac arrest, “I-I’m not...that kind of...guy...”

“You should look at people in the eyes when you talk to them.”

When he looks up, he is face to face with Yuki. Suddenly he's panicking, feeling an inense mixture of rage and embarrassment threatening to burst in his chest. Before his mind completely loses it, he catches Tohru was peeking out from behind Yuki’s shoulders, cheeks blooming a healthy peachy color, still not recovered from that super duper very embarrassing encounter in her room. An image flashes in Kyo’s mind. Soft, pale skin and a thin baby pink strip in the middle. Every nerve in Kyo’s body freezes.

Yuki sighs exasperatedly like he was tired of watching Kyo absolutely fail at literally all social interactions. But when he walks past Kyo, Kyo swears he caught a soft, tiny disgustingly unguarded giggle.

* * *

Kyo hardly remembers what it was like anymore: those days in which her room was empty and bare and the dusting window shut tight.

He had always hated this house. It stood tall and looming, imposing its ancient architecture on unknowing passersby, reminding them that this house has stood this way for centuries, that there were secrets behind its closed doors that no one will ever know.

It reminded him of all the things he hated. Yuki. The faded dolls Shigure places on the front porch that were catching dust. Himself.

It reminded him of the past. And it reminded him of the never changing future.

Those days, the house was as quiet as a graveyard. Yuki locked himself in his room like the ghost of a prisoner, never talking unless he was talked to. And although Shigure can be annoyingly noisy at times, he wasn’t a great conversationalist when he didn’t feel like talking. The house, with all of its rusting doors and windows shut tight, looked like it was abandoned, like no one lived in it.

And maybe it was true.

Maybe the life they lived before Tohru wasn’t living at all.

* * *

“Why do you always leave your window open?” Kyo grumbles one night. It’s already been how many months since she moved here and he _still_ can’t live it down.

Tohru had somehow tricked him into doing math homework with her. And _yes_ , contrary to Haru’s useless comment as they were all eating sliced watermelons in the living room waiting for Yuki to come home earlier that afternoon, it _is_ considered _tricking_ when you smile at someone and ask them politely. 

“It’s not safe.” He continues because she wasn’t freaking paying attention. She was scribbling stuff that looked oddly like ugly cat doodles on the edges of her notebook.

“Do you know how much insects there are in this freaking forest?” He reaches out to catch a mosquito before it landed on her cheek.

“You should always keep it locked.” He adds. “If we leave you here alone, and someone comes in through your window, what will you do?”

Tohru bursts out laughing. The kind of laughter that’s bubbling with happiness and so terrifyingly sincere, he’s absolutely certain it’s shaking up all the locks in the rest of the windows and doors and secret rooms in this ugly, ugly house.

“Thank you for your concern, Kyo-kun.” She says when she’s done. Her face was pink and healthy, and she looks so happy not even the demons burning in hell are immune to her sincerity, “It means a lot to me.”

A new, mellow, fuzzy feeling settles in his stomach and he forcibly drags his attention away from it because he’s not sure he’s ready to go down _that_ road yet. He opens his mouth to say to say something, but the door slams open.

It shocks and startles Kyo so hard he can feel himself almost screeching and barfing up the watermelons he ate this afternoon. He turns around quickly ready to skin the living fuck out of this intruder.

“Honda-san,” says Haru, unfazed by Kyo’s wild, killer glare directed against him. This motherfucker did it on purpose, “it’s time to eat.”

Before he could charge straight after this white haired stupid fuck like a burning, raging cheetah, another stupid fuck shouts from downstairs and through Tohru’s open window: “Kyo-kun! Stop flirting! Everyone can hear you! But more importantly, the dinner I, the loving father of four, so heartwarmingly made for all of my kids, is ready!”

“ _We_ _ordered_ _pizza, Shigure_.” Yuki clarifies. Also from the kitchen. And also from her open damn window.

“Hey,” Kyo growls, squinting his eyes at the faded blood orange wallet in Haru’s hand, “that looks familiar.”

“It’s yours.” Haru says boldly, taking his hand gently and pressing the wallet in his palm, “Thank you for treating us to dinner.”

 “Oi...”

“I’ll wait for you downstairs, Honda-san.” Haru says before turning around to sprint away, completely ignoring the fuck out of Kyo.

Kyo was absolutely _seething_. There was no other choice. He’s going to have to kill these people and burn this house down.

_No. Other. Choice._

“Kyo-kun,” Kyo jolts awake, and like a block of ice under the heat of the sun, his anger melts away quickly. Tohru is already by the door, waiting for him, “Let’s eat!”

It was strange the way his entire body stops working at her voice. When he does, he listens to an orchestra of noise. Shigure’s laughing loudly at a joke he made that no one else heard, and Yuki’s telling Haru not to drop the pitcher of water. Some reporter on TV is drawling on about the impending summer heatwave and a water interruption on Tuesday. The doorbell is ringing incessantly signalling the arrival of another moronic intruder. It was fucking noisy and the lively noise downstairs fills up every quiet corner in this rusting, aging house.

He doesn’t know exactly when this house started getting more chaotic than it used to be. But he knows he doesn’t hate it.

Kyo turns around. Looks at the window one last time. A warm gust of wind blew through the open window, promising more insects, more unwelcome visitors, more sliced watermelon, more yelling and innocent misunderstandings.

Promising the arrival of summer, and of a new, uncertain future. A future that is bright, hopeful, and better than this present.

He leaves her window open.

**Author's Note:**

> I SWEAR UPON MY LIFE someday I will definitely write about someone else. But for now, here is sigh YET ANOTHER kyo sohma fic because me and my ugly 10 year old self are disappointingly passionate kyo stans. I'm so excited to watch this socially awkward orange kitten slowly find happiness and do it ANIMATED. We will be here, crying, in our HES TRYING HIS BEST t-shirt, cheering him one awkward and also super painful interaction at a time. 
> 
> Thank you everyone who's been reading my fics! You can talk to me at my tumblr [@palamig](http://palamig.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The title is from Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex


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